Relatives from Orlando are up here to visit. They are planning to head back tomorrow instead of Friday. They're in contact with family back home, but I'm wondering if leaving early is really a good idea.
Looking at the tropical wind probability for their location, there's a 60-80 percent chance they're going to be hit with 39mph winds or greater.
Better than even odds, but the reality is that they are relatively far inland, and fairly well protected by all the land mass around them (unless they are closer to the coast than to orlando).
If they don't have anything critically irreplaceable, if their home is already secured for tropical force winds, and if they can extend their stay until late next week, then it's worth considering staying longer. Otherwise there's little danger in traveling down before the storm and weathering it out in place. Even if it hits them head on, it'll have already travelled half of Florida's length and thus weakened considerably. It would only be very bad if it stayed in the atlantic off the coast, strengthening, then took a sharp turn west right at Orlando.
Worst case, they'll have a day or two notice that it's still a major hurricane as it approaches them, hasn't weakened, and they'll have some time to evacuate.[DOUBLEPOST=1504795557,1504795406][/DOUBLEPOST]
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/114654.shtml?tswind120#wcontents